


Snowfall

by raininshadows



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 02:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13988112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows
Summary: Nathaniel and Mrs. Underwood celebrate New Year's.





	Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makiyakinabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/gifts).



It was December thirty-first, New Year’s Eve, and it was snowing in London.

It didn’t snow around New Year’s most years, so Nathaniel was taking every opportunity to stare out the window at the clumps of white, which were drifting gently to the ground and melting as soon as they touched it. Mr. Underwood, as usual, was preparing to attend one of the many parties throughout the city that night. Mrs. Underwood and Nathaniel, also as usual, were preparing for a relatively quiet night at home. 

Magicians did not traditionally celebrate New Year’s Day the same way the rest of the British Empire did, with the decorated trees and the gifts for the children, although the apprentices did usually get the day off from their work on the grounds that none of their teachers wanted to work that day either. But good food and alcohol were universally appealing, and in the depths of the long, cold winter, a lot of people were interested in any excuse for a night of celebration. Mrs. Underwood usually contrived to get Nathaniel something, and gave it to him while Mr. Underwood was out at whatever party he’d been invited to. On the first New Year’s, when he was five, this had been a warm, thick Irish jumper. 

This year, Mr. Underwood left fairly early, around four in the afternoon. Dinner had been finished by that point, leaving a good amount of leftovers, which had been put away to await later consumption. Nathaniel, who’d helped make and then clean up dinner, had taken one of Mr. Underwood’s books and was reading it in the dining room while Mrs. Underwood continued to knit the other member of a half-completed pair of socks. Today’s book was a weighty tome on the pyramids of Egypt — how they’d been built, why they’d been built as they were, who had been involved, and so on. It was, fortunately, at least mostly in English rather than Coptic. The radio, which wandered through various rooms of the house depending on who wanted to do what with it today, sat in the corner.

Today’s news was, as usual for holidays, fairly bright-spirited — Nathaniel was reasonably sure that nothing short of the Prime Minister being assassinated would change that — and interspersed with appropriately festive music. It was interrupted shortly after supper, which consisted mostly of reheated leftovers, by the shrill ring of the telephone, which Mrs. Underwood hastily answered.

Nathaniel, distracted from his book, listened to her side of the conversation. It was unilluminative: “Hello, Martha Underwood speaking … oh, hello, Arthur … oh, of course … of course, I see … tomorrow, then.” She hung up, returned to the table, and picked up her knitting again. “That was Mr. Underwood, Nathaniel,” she said. “Apparently with the snow he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to come home tonight, so he’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

Nathaniel nodded, then put his book down and went over to the window. Indeed, the snow had managed to actually accumulate to the point of forming a thin layer of white over the ground in places. It wasn’t much — a few centimeters at its deepest points — but it was enough to touch, which he’d never seen before. Even on the rare occasions when there had been a noticeable amount of snow, it had usually fallen overnight and then been mostly gone by morning. “Mrs. Underwood, may I go outside?” he asked. 

She looked up from her knitting, which was beginning to take the recognizable form of a sock. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “Just make sure you stay warm, and don’t stay out too long.” 

Nathaniel had already been mostly dressed for the weather, since the house wasn’t warm enough to do away with the need for a good jumper; the only necessary addition was another jacket, this one waterproof, and a pair of gloves. Stepping outside into the garden, he was greeted by a gentle but definite breeze carrying the snowflakes. Within a few seconds, a layer of white was forming on the windward side of his jacket. 

The deepest parts of the snow were near the edges of the rhododendron bushes, and when he crouched and swept his hand through them, he came away with a full handful of snow. Beyond them, the statue of the man with the lightning bolt was almost entirely snow-free; as he watched, he could see flakes trying to land there and sliding off from the angle, although some had found a home on the man’s sideburns. The pedestal was coated in these flakes, and almost as deep in some patches as the area under the rhododendron bushes. 

Nathaniel wiped a part of the pedestal clear and set his handful of snow, now shaped into a small ball, down on it. It stood alone, vaguely absurdly, in the center of the bare patch. Seized by a memory of years ago, before he’d become an apprentice, Nathaniel scooped up enough snow to make two balls — one smaller than the first, one even smaller than both of the previous two — and quickly assembled them into a tiny snowman. 

By this point, the snow and wind were starting to pierce his multiple layers of clothing, so, leaving the miniature snowman where it was, he returned inside. Mrs. Underwood smiled brightly at him. “How was it?”

“Cold,” he said, slipping out of the outermost jacket and hanging it up. “But nice.”

She nodded. “It’s like that. Oh!” she added, with a bit of surprise. “I almost forgot your present. I’ll be back in a minute.” She vanished upstairs and returned a few minutes later holding an inobtrusively wrapped rectangle, which she handed to Nathaniel. He unwrapped it to reveal a painting — a forest covered in snow, with a fox in the foreground. “For your room,” Mrs. Underwood said. She seemed about to continue when Nathaniel set the picture down on the table and hugged her. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Underwood,” he mumbled into her shoulder. 

“Oh, it was nothing,” she said, returning the hug. “I’m glad you like it.”

Midnight came and went, bringing the new year with it. Mr. Underwood never discovered the new painting, in the same way that he’d never discovered the tea stain.


End file.
